frenchie food in spain

[nana]

hi everybody, great forum. its my first post so please just bear with me because i have a couple a questions :o

i live in spain and my kibble choices are very limited. ive read alot of posts and still do not know what to do. my frenchie is 4 months old and we are feeding her nutro choice kibble. we started with science plan but she had a stress attack when one week i couldnt come home for lunch and was throwing up all over her little den :( when everything got back to normal(me being able to come home for lunch) she stopped eating. we went to the vet and he told us that she probably associated the stress with the food, so i started to do some research. i found out that science plan was junk(thanks to the forum) and wanted to give my frenchie the best kibble. but every great kibble i found doesnt get imported here. so if someone can give me some advice my choice are:

Nutro choice (currently feeding)-she seems to like it but vomits at least once a day and her stool is very soft

eukanuba-tried but wouldnt eat it at all

science plan and science plan natural

royal canin- but none fo their sensible line

affinity advance - www.affinity-advance.com if someone can check this out and tell me what they think I would greatly appreciate it

now my other issue is the fact the my frenchie does not stop eating her own stool :eek: weve been giving her Deter for almost a month and a half and no results. she knows she shouldnt do it but when we leave her alone there is nothing we can do. any advice would help.

P.S i have seriously considered raw but dont have the time and no one imports it either.

[Borgan]

If you can't get raw and dry is crappy, why not try canned, wet food? That's the next best thing to raw, IMO.

- Brooke.

[nana]

i read that wet or canned is worse than kibble. supposedly its made of mostly sugar and is highly addictive. besides that, the only wet i can get is from these brands dont know what to do :(

[nana]

can u get raw there? maybe they ship to spain. if u can send me a website or link, maybe i can contact them to see if they ship to spain.

[Martina]

My dogs are on perscription kibble BUT (of course I have an opinion ;)!) it seems that many people here like the Royal Canin brand. Do you get Wellness? It's also a good human quality brand - but I see you didn't mention it, which probably means you don't.

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that I remember someone saying that putting little pineapple in with the food helps with coprophagia. It tastes good going down the first time but awful the second. I don't know if it's an old wives tale, but there are over the counter aids. She may even just grow out of it.

[gmacleod]

I wouldn't be too keen on the Advance food - it has a lot of fillers and by-products in it. Generally things to avoid in dog food are things like corn, wheat, gluten, beet pulp, unidentified sources like "poultry" or "animal" - and all of those are in this food. Aside from being poor nutrition, they are also very common causes of food allergies.

Nutro is quite a bit better. Not sure if you can get it where you are, but they do make an "Ultra" range that is substantially better than their other foods and probably ranks as a premium kibble. The rest of the Nutro range, rather like Royal Canin, ranks as mid-range kibble. Still a whole lot better than the likes of Science Diet or Eukanuba though!

If you can find the time to research a raw diet though, I really would recommend it :) Once you're used to it, it really is no more difficult or time consuming than feeding kibble (just takes more freezer space ;)). I have yet to hear of a raw-fed dog eating their own poop either ;)

[nana]

im a little scared of the raw diet because i really dont know enough of how to do it. if u can refer me to some links i would greatly appreciate it with some example diet plans. i tried to get the nutro ultra but no one imports it here this is such a bummer :(

[gmacleod]

LOL - reminds me I need to finish the raw feeding page for Boxerworld :rolleyes:

But for now, here's one good link: http://www.newcastleboxers.com/diet.shtml
Note that that page is part of a raw feeding web ring, so you'll also find links to other raw feeding pages from the link at the bottom of that site.

There are also a ton of good books available. A couple I can recall offhand are Dr Ian Billinghurst's "Raw Meaty bones" and "Grow Your Pup With Bones" and Dr Tom Lonsdale's "Raw Meaty bones Promote Health".

[nana]

i found someone that imports eagle pack supposedly its good kibble anybody ever use it?

[nana]

any advice about eagle? :confused:

[franp]

I have friends that use Eagle Pack and swear by it. If you can get it, I would say use it.

I feed raw; for me that is the best.But from everything I have heard about this food, it appears to be an excellent option.

[Elwood]

Sorry if this has been covered before, but what is classified as "Raw" food? Would chicken breasts be considered "Raw" or is there a specific food?
Thanks! I'm new to the forum and think it's fantastic! appicon

[gmacleod]

Hi Susan

Technically any food that is raw is classified as raw - including chicken breasts. But when talking about a raw diet, it is really a balanced diet that is made up primarily (70-80%) of raw meat and bone (the bone is very important as you need calcium to balance the phosphorous in meat), offal, some amount of fruit and vegetable matter (how much varies from zero to around 15% of the diet), and a few extras such as eggs, yoghurt, cottage cheese, fish/olive/flaxseed oil etc.

[Elwood]

Thanks for the explanation on the raw diet. Do you know of a website or link that would provide a listing of what should be included in the raw diet?

Thanks again for your help!

[franp]

There are a number of books; my favorite is "The Ultimate Diet "by Schultze.You can also go to www.bravorawdiet.com.

This is the site of the company that I use for my dog.Even though it is from the company that supplies the food , it is a good starting point.

There are a number of raw feeding lists that you can join and I would encourage you to do so..Learning about this way of feeding is most important before you make the commitment.

I switched to raw about 14months ago and have not looked back.There is allot to understand before you do this..Once you get into it, it becomes easy.But,please ,read and research first.